A black day for role-playing
Gary Gygax passed away yesterday at his home in Lake Geneva (near Milwaukee, Wisconsin) aged 69. Gygax was the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, which arguably popularized role playing games.
He will be sadly missed.
Thanks to everyone
It’s been a very trying and tiring day, going to work at 8:00 and just getting in at 21:10.
I’ve been seeting up today for the Shropshire skills fair in Telford, taking out the newly christened “Aberystwyth Field Robotics Group” for an exhibition. Mark, Fred and myself have spent the afternoon setting up for the lots of visiting school children in the next two days.
It was very nice to get home and find so many messages of congratulations on my facebook wall, it helps a little towards easing having to be driving to Telford at 06:00 for the next two days.
I’m just really looking forward to FOSDEM at the weekend.
Computer Errors – in Haiku
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
Everything is gone;
Your life’s work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again
The code was willing,
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.
Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
Errors have occurred.
We won’t tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.
Server’s poor response
Not quick enough for browser.
Timed out, plum blossom.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Login incorrect.
Only perfect spellers may
enter this system.
This site has been moved.
We’d tell you where, but then we’d
have to delete you.
Wind catches lily
Scatt’ring petals to the wind:
Segmentation fault
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask way too much.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.
With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
“My Novel” not found.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao, until
You bring fresh toner.
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist
Stay the patient course
Of little worth is your ire
The network is down
A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
There is a chasm
of carbon and silicon
the software can’t bridge
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
No keyboard present
Hit F1 to continue
Zen engineering?
Hal, open the file
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
open the, please Hal
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you’re seeking
Must now be retyped.
The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape, too, has gone.
Rather than a beep
Or a rude error message,
These words: “File not found.”
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
Oolite
I’ve just discovered Oolite, although I seem to remember it from a year or two ago, but not having the time to play with it.
I downloaded it again yesterday, and I have to say that I’m quite impressed by the openness of the system, and I have only suffered a couple of software crashes – I crashed into other ships and space stations more than I’ve lost the game when it bombed out.
It brings back memories of 8 bit gaming, and most of my Elite playing was on a friends BBC model B so I never got very far, but I did play Frontier: Elite II on my Amiga 1200 an awful lot.
I don’t anticipate being anything more than Mostly Harmless for a while yet, but I am looking forward to being able to afford to buy a Falcon or even design myself a ship or two for the community.
If you were a fan, then download it if you’ve the time to spare wending your way across the space lanes, trading, pirating, bounty hunting, mining, or whatever your preferred profession in space.
Sweet potato
Chocolate!
Wow! Morrisons Petrol station in Aber is selling Lindt Excellence 85%. I went in there for 4 pints of milk, and spotted this on the impulse buy rack, and just had to have some – it’s been too long since I had some real chocolate.
I must say it will not be to everyone’s taste, and you can only eat a very little at a sitting – one square (quite large) is enough for me, but it’s *real* chocolate, with an interesting flavour texture.
Oh, and it cost a few pence more than 4 pints of milk.
Happy Graduation
Congratulations to all those that graduated yesterday.
If you missed out on buying a copy of the department photo, don’t worry they’re available from my photobox gallery
There’s this year and last year’s photos on there, and I’ll be putting up a Big Bob special soon too.
Richard
Good on you Tom Robinson
Free Downloads: iTunes downloads cost 79p per track. Writer/publisher get 6p, Performer 6-8p, Visa/Mastercard 7p, Apple 12p, and Record Company almost 50p. Sod that. Help yourself to my songs & share them with your friends: right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) on titles to download. Optional: if you’d like to help with hosting costs, click below
Go get yourself some music…
If you like what you hear, give Tom some money :d
Waiting for a Wii
Make a Mii even if you haven’t got a Wii yet.
I’m still waiting for them to come back into stock in Aber, or somewhere nearby so I can get hold of one. Why didn’t I preorder one – well long story that I’m not going into here, but I will be getting one as soon as I can now.